


The Sick Day

by princessofmind



Series: Three's A Crowd [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 00:50:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/princessofmind/pseuds/princessofmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The weather was seasonably warm, which unfortunately meant pollen, and lots of it.  Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been much of a problem; your allergies aren’t nearly as bad as they were when you were growing up, but combined with sudden cold snaps punctuated with freezing rain, you found yourself skipping class that particular Wednesday because your head hurt so bad you could barely see and it felt like there was glass in your throat.  It felt like you didn’t sleep at all, tossing and turning and fighting the sheets like you were, but when you shuffle out to the kitchen to get a glass of juice and cold bottle of water, Sollux is already home from work, the cuffs of his boring-ass shirt unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows as he mucks around with something on the stove.  You honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck about what it was if you tried.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sick Day

You were the first person to notice you were sick.

Which was actually more anomalous than it sounds. Karkat has the sixth sense, the seventh sense, and the eighth sense, which involves catching people getting sick before they do. Half the time you or Sollux will be heading out the door and he’ll stop you with a glass of orange juice or an extra vitamin to supplement the multivitamin that he shoves down both of your throats already or a jacket or even a handful of Dayquil pills. When the three of you first started dating, you and Sollux both turned your nose up at his meddling, because how the hell could he know when someone was getting sick before they did? But he hadn’t been wrong yet, so the two of you kind of threw up your hands and accepted it as the most useless superpower on the planet and took his homemade remedies and vitamins like good little kids.

But the past month had been kind of rough on all three of you. One of the management positions over him had opened up, so Sollux was practically killing himself at work trying to land the higher-paying, more flexibly scheduled job. Karkat had been changed from pediatrics to geriatrics, and for as much as he adored children, he hated old people. So while he only worked until about one in the morning now, when he was home he was out on the balcony working his way through at least a pack a day and being too ornery for even Sollux to put up with when he came inside. And while your paper was kind of a big deal, the important one for this particular class, it was because of them both being in such sore moods that you threw yourself into it as hard as you did. Because other people being stressed actually stressed you out more than any other thing that could be going on in your life, so you avoided the scent of cigarette smoke leaking through the windows and the tapping of computer keys at all hours and your empty bed and focused instead on writing the best damn paper about Japanese American internment during World War II that your teacher has ever seen.

The weather was seasonably warm, which unfortunately meant pollen, and lots of it. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t have been much of a problem; your allergies aren’t nearly as bad as they were when you were growing up, but combined with sudden cold snaps punctuated with freezing rain, you found yourself skipping class that particular Wednesday because your head hurt so bad you could barely see and it felt like there was glass in your throat. It felt like you didn’t sleep at all, tossing and turning and fighting the sheets like you were, but when you shuffle out to the kitchen to get a glass of juice and cold bottle of water, Sollux is already home from work, the cuffs of his boring-ass shirt unbuttoned and rolled up to his elbows as he mucks around with something on the stove. You honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck about what it was if you tried.

He looks over his shoulder and arches an eyebrow when he sees you, still in your pajamas with your hair matted to your head and walking like every step hurts. “What’s wrong with you?” he asks, leaning his hip on the counter and folding his arms in a way that usually makes you want to climb him like a tree, but right now you just want to curl up on the floor because apparently the short walk from your bedroom to the kitchen sapped any energy your sixteen plus hours of sleep managed to give you.

“Don’t feel good,” you answer honestly instead of snarking, and his other eyebrow goes up to join the first one because wow, you sound kind of like you’re the one who’s been chain smoking, not Karkat. Grimacing that the raspiness of your own voice, you pull down one of the limited edition Lord of the Rings glasses and fill it with apple juice, fumbling with the cold plastic of the water bottle before tucking it under your arm.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” he says, stirring the pot on the stove, and if you had a free hand you’d flip him off. “I know you’re upset that Karkat and I have been so busy lately, but you don’t have to act like you’re dying from a cold just for attention.”

That’s definitely the exhaustion talking, because while he picks and prods at you, it’s just how he shows affection, and he never teases you about things that genuinely upset you. And he knows you’re a bit sensitive regarding your reputation as an attention whore, so it’s one of those things he just doesn’t bring up. But he’s getting even less sleep than usual, the circles under his eyes making him look like he’s been punched, and combined with the way it feels like you’re about five seconds from passing out on the tile and getting juice everywhere, you just ignore him and stumble back to your room like you’re walking through molasses.

Both the cup and the bottle go on your nightstand without being touched, and the sheets have cooled during your brief trip to the kitchen and feel absolutely delicious against your skin. It means you’re running a fever and should probably be taking something for it, but you’d rather cut off a hand then go back to the kitchen to try and sort through Karkat’s truly impressive medicine cabinet that’s too big to be contained in one of the bathrooms. So even though your eyelids feel hot against your eyes, and it hurts to lay still, you resign yourself to your fate of just rolling around in bed until the fever either breaks on its own or you’re driven from your room to try and find something that you can eat that won’t make your throat hurt any worse than it already does.

You don’t lay there for long before someone knocks on your doorframe (oh, you should remember to close the door so your sick germs don’t leak out into the rest of the apartment, if it even works that way, which it probably doesn’t). “Eridan?” It’s Sollux, and he doesn’t sound irritated any more, just tired. “I shouldn’t have snapped like that. Being exhausted doesn’t mean I get to be a dick to everyone, so I’m. Sorry.” He always pauses when he apologizes, raking his fingers through his hair and chewing his lip like he never quite got the hang of telling people he was sorry and really, obviously hates doing it. “I don’t have anything else I need to do tonight, so I was thinking maybe we could go grab some ice cream or something if you wanted to.”

And wow, usually you’d jump at the chance to go out and do something as stereotypically romantic as go get ice cream. Order some stupidly fancy parfait and watch Sollux grimace around his double scoop of chocolate and vanilla while you work your way through layers of soft serve and fruit and sprinkles and chocolate. But he always asks for at least one bite so he can bitch about how overly sweet it is and then steal the last little bit from the bottom because he’s an asshole like that. He never complains about how sweet it is, though, when you kiss him in the park you walk through on your way home. It sounds so nice, and you desperately want to go, but the thought of getting up and even just throwing on a pair of jeans sounds like too much work, let alone walking through the park to the ice cream parlour and imbibing copious amounts of dairy products before hiking back.

“No, sorry,” you rasp, holding the blankets up to your chin and not turning to face the door. Given his irritable mood, he’ll probably get pissed at you for refusing, because given your track record, it kind of looks like you’re just trying to get something else out of him. A more sincere apology, him coaxing you from the bed and insisting so you know that he actually wants to go and isn’t just trying to placate you. But he doesn’t snap, just walks away, and while it makes your heart ache a little, it really wasn’t an option. You just wish he would have stayed, although there’s not much he could do.

As quick as he walked away, he’s back, sitting on the edge of your bed and smoothing your hair away from your ear, which you luckily haven’t been laying on because otherwise the thermometer in his hand would spit out an inaccurate reading. You can hear the sound of plastic against plastic as he puts one of the little cups over the end before putting it in your ear, not as gentle as Karkat but not as rough as you’d expect, removing it after only a few seconds when it beeps. He mutters a curse, leaning forward to kiss the side of your face, just to the side of your eyebrow. “I’ll be right back.”

And you’re starting to think you’re sicker than you initially believed, because it feels like he’s coming back in before he really even left, dressed in sweats with his phone still lit up in his hand. You make a questioning noise in the back of your throat as he rummages in your backpack and eventually pulls out your tablet, bringing it with him as he nudges you over and settles in the bed next to you. “Karkat doesn’t want me to dose you up till he gets home, but I’m not going to just leave you in here alone.” His voice is soft and low, gentle, worried, and he doesn’t complain when you roll over to use his stomach as a pillow.

You drift in and out of sleep, waking up when he jostles your shoulder and helps prop you up enough to drink your glass of juice and most of your water in small bursts. In the interim, you lay and listen to him breathe, stroking your sweaty hair and the back of your neck, the leg opposite you drawn up so he can prop the tablet up on his knee. Part of you is worried that he was lying when he said he didn’t have any work to do, and is just using your tablet to e-mail or run numbers since it’s smaller than his behemoth of a laptop and therefore easier to use in bed. But when you sit up for what feels like the thousandth time to guzzle more room temperature water, you’re pretty sure he’s watching one of the old MythBusters episodes, and it makes you feel a bit better for trapping him in bed with you.

He must be content with how much you’ve had to drink, because a bit more time has passed since the last time you were awake. He’s slid down a bit so he can rest against the pillows, your head against his bony rib cage, as he watches the tablet, the light from it casting colorful shadows over his face in the darkness of his room. Footfalls ring on the hardwood, and a moment later, Karkat drops into your field of vision, crouched at the edge of the bed so he can look at you. He’s wearing the Avengers scrubs you bought him for Christmas and has his lip rings in, and he’s so adorable it makes you want to cry. And you must actually start to cry instead of just wanting to, because Sollux makes an alarmed noise and Karkat reaches out to stroke your cheek, shushing quietly.

“You really don’t feel good, do you?” he murmurs, and you just sniffle pitifully and nod, Sollux’s ribs dragging uncomfortably against your cheek bone as you do so. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”

“My head hurts and my throat is really sore,” you croak, and the raspy quality of your usually smooth voice should be a testament to the second symptom. “And ‘m really hot and achey all over just in general.”

“Sounds like the bug that’s been going around. A bunch of my patients all came down with it at the same time,” he says, pushing your bangs off your forehead and leaning forward to press his lips against the warm skin. “You still feel like you’re running pretty hot. Hang on, I’ll be right back.”

He starts towards the door, and you watch him go, the light from the hallway so bright that it almost eclipses him, Sollux shifting unhappily under you like he wants to get up. “Is there anything I can do?” he asks before Karkat can go around the corner, his hand sliding from your hair to your neck and down to your shoulders, like he wants to soothe the fever pains but doesn’t know how. Like he wants to do _something_ to help but doesn’t know what.

“Keep your skinny ass right where it is,” the shadowed form instructs from the doorway. “He doesn’t like being by himself when he’s sick, so you’re doing the most good by just sitting there. Which, wow, you’re really good at.”

They kind of have this thing with talking about you like you aren’t there, which might be more accurate right now because you’re mostly incoherent, but let the record show that they do it when you aren’t running a fever as well. “I should have checked on him when I got home,” he says, fingers trailing back up your spine before settling in your hair again. “I mean, I was here for a few hours before he came stumbling out, but I thought he was just avoiding me and being a diva.”

Karkat shrugs, tapping the door like he’s anxious to get on with what he was about to do. “In case you haven’t noticed, Captor, we’ve been living with him for over a year and we still have trouble telling if he’s being a diva or not. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Just let me go get him something for his fever before his brain cooks itself.”

“It can’t actually do that, can it?” Sollux asks, and Karkat just makes a disgusted noise before walking away, not even deeming it with a response. It makes you smile, despite the fever and the aches and the throbbing in your head, because he’s worried. And while you never doubt that they care about you (they wouldn’t put up with your shit half as well as they did if they didn’t), it makes you warm to be reminded so vividly of it. Or maybe that’s just the fever, you can’ tell.

He comes back with a couple of horse pills and another bottle of water, passing them off to Sollux before disappearing again, and even in your fever-addled state you can ascertain that it’s probably to smoke and shower. He doesn’t like his pajamas reeking of smoke, and you get uppity if the scent rubs off too much on your sheets, so if he’s going to be in bed for any extended period of time (like, sleeping, for instance) he always showers and changes first. Sollux sits you up, and you have to take the pills one at a time, but he doesn’t even heckle you. Just lays you down on his chest and lets you watch while he dicks around on Angry Birds, completing a couple levels you’d scored poorly on and hadn’t gotten around to trying again.

When he slips under the blankets with you, his hair is still damp, and he smells like hot water and soap, that little acrid twinge of smoke underneath it not overwhelming but rather something that clings to him no matter what, just a little something that you associate with him. He checks your head with his hand and tells Sollux to set an alarm on his phone to go off in five hours so he can get you more medicine, grabbing the spare pillows and building a pile that lets him spoon against your back and rest his head against Sollux’s bicep, your head still resting on his bony chest. “You’re the sick one, so you get to pick,” Karkat says, stroking your side and blessedly not about to force you to sleep more.

“Can we just watch more MythBusters?” you ask as Sollux’s long fingers flick through your apps until he gets back to the red Netflix icon, loading it up and scrolling through the instant queue. “The spy episode, if you can find it.”

It’s almost unbearably hot between the two of them, Karkat being the most well-insulated of the three of you and giving off the most heat against your back, but under the blankets Sollux is unfortunately warm as well. But they both feel so nice pressed against you, soothing you with their hands, your breath starting to fall into sync with theirs, you can’t bring yourself to care. Besides, you’re supposed to sweat out a fever, right? So you just let yourself zone, watching the images flickering across the screen, the sound of the show mixing with the sound of them bickering over the different methods and outcomes being shown despite having seen this episode a thousand times already (it’s your favorite). And it feels good. Normal. Better than you’ve felt in several weeks, despite your illness, especially when neither of them retreat to their own beds for the night and keep you sandwiched between them to wake up the next morning when your fever breaks and are actually able to enjoy it properly.

Sollux gets sick three days later, and he’s an even bigger bitch about it than you are.


End file.
